TODD SEAVEY
author of Libertarianism for Beginners and writer of/speaker about many other things

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Is America Ready -- for a Teenage President?

Today brings the second issue of Final Crisis, a DC Comics series partly about DC’s many parallel universes. But does one of the universes in their multiverse (as currently depicted) contain the Earth on which their early-70s comic book Prez took place? That was the all-too-plausible series about the then-new development of eighteen-year-olds being able to vote leading to a further change in the law that made possible America’s first teenage president, who pursued a hip, reformist agenda.

Speaking of which: I don’t think Americans are paying much attention to policy details, even extremely important ones (as I’ll discuss in my July Book Selection entry in eight days, examining the journal Critical Review), mostly just the tone and personality of major political candidates. That means politicians adept at sounding like all things to all people — as Bill Clinton was and Hillary Clinton was not — flourish.

And thus Obama is probably wise to stay both optimistic-sounding and vague — he is, after all, trying to get elected by a populace stupid enough to read horoscopes. Right now, I’d say America’s horoscope sounds a little like this:

You are a country that wants to feel optimistic again — you know you can accomplish great things but feel you’ll have to make some tough choices and some hard changes in order to get there. Someone you’ve just met may give you the boost you need…